You guys! Everybody needs to get in on this fall/winter twist challenge. I’m telling you, it will breathe life into your natural coils and curls. I especially recommend it for my sisters with the kinkiest hair, or hair that tends to just stay dry, no matter what oil, cream or prayer you put on it. I honestly HATED my hair in twists at first. I love my bouncy twist-outs and big hair, no lie. But it is worth the abundance of health, wealth and slayage that twists bring by giving your hair a vacay. Sidenote: you can do a lot of dope styles with twists, they don’t just have to be this horrendous protective style. Sidesidenote: I haven’t quite mastered those amazeballs styles as yet. Maybe week 3 will be the week?!

Here’s a few tips to make a twist (or braid) challenge doable. First of all, if you start getting tired of twists…switch up to braids. If you are used to braids, do some twists. Secondly, you can change up the sizes–go mini for a few weeks or do some big, bold and beautiful chunky twists pinned up or side swept with some pretty earrings and a generous dollop of shine-increasing grapeseed oil. Just don’t forget to moisturize, spritz with water and massage that scalp (if you work out…and you SHOULD be working out, you can use tea tree oil or ACV to gently clean the scalp until wash day).

If you are truly serious about natural hair growth, a twist challenge will do the trick. The main reason I recommend it over adding synthetic extensions is because it really expands your self-love and helps you better understand your hair and appreciate the journey–every (sometimes) painful step of it. If you have synthetic hair covering your real, growing hair–you miss really working side by side with your hair. There are the subtle things you miss, there is a lot of intimacy with your hair you miss out on. Trust me when you love your hair at its worst (or what you perceive to be its worst), when it’s ready to undo the twists and rock that SERIOUSSS twist out, you will literally SHINE with pride. And trust me, it’s so worth it. 6 months ladies! Let’s do it!

Natural hair lights up a room. African skin is golden and magnificent, as deep as it is warm. Shades of cinnamon and ochre, not to be ignored. Ostracized. But majestic like mountains, rising like our hair. Regal like an eagle. Soaring above on our ancestor’s wings.

Never feel less than because your hair is different. It’s thirsty. You have thirsty roots. Like a mind thirsty for knowledge. Let it saturate in the oils of nature’s bounty. Do not neglect it in self-hatred, wishing it to be something else. An eagle can never be a tamed chicken, though it has been beaten and trained to cluck. Free it, and it will soar above. Naturally.

Greetings, phenomenal sisthren and brethren. I’m here to give you the 5 lessons I have learned from my hair journey this year. The more time you spend being comfortable with your hair, the more it reveals to you (or hair bloggers reveal..ha ha!). I’m not a new naturalista but we all can keep learning from our beautiful, coily hair and each other!

1. Focus TCL on the back of your head.
This portion is the part you cannot really see most of the time but if you pay more attention to it than your front, it will get longer and make your ponytails and other hairdos look longer too. Don’t forget the back of your head!!!

2. Take time to create tight, moisturized twists at night.

If you don’t just hurriedly put some doo-foo twists in the night before , you’ll find styling your shiny, soft hair so much easier in the morning!

3. Keep protective styles in for 2-3 days and wear a headscarf.
This really helps hair growth. The key to this working is to still keep the twists/braids/buns well moisturized!!!

4. You don’t need a million new hairstyles. Honestly, just clipping your hair up for a classy look or rocking a twist out will always be effortless and look timeless. Don’t worry about having the same hairdo for a few days or a week.

5. Switch up hair products with the seasons.

This is my most important lesson. Grapeseed oil and a water- based hair dressing is terrific for summer, as well as aloe and honey. But come dry winter, bring out the big guns. You know what I’m talking about: castor oil, Shea butter, EVOO, coconut oil and those necessary hot oil treatments!

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know what your tresses taught you this year!

Thank goodness there is an endless resource of natural products to use in our beautiful, thick Afro hair. And who knows what waits to be discovered next?

Well, today, I’m here to discuss adding powders as a hair mask. You can make a paste using yogurt, goat or coconut milk, or even plain water (oils like coconut oil work well too). You can make it as thick or as thin as you prefer.

So what powders are beneficial for African hair?

TURMERIC

Turmeric is a cheap powder you can find easily and is a great anti-bacterial, dandruff-fighting powder thanks to its high levels of curcumin. This orangey-yellow powder promotes hair growth by counteracting hair loss. It’s also staining so find a way to protect your vanity while applying it in front of your mirror and wipe any that falls immediately! The results will be worth it.

GINGER

You can use ginger powder in a hair mask! It’s a powerful spice that can promote hair growth, reduce hair loss and makes your hair soft and shiny. Thrown in a tablespoon or two to your regular hair mask for great-smelling action.

TRIPHALA

Triphala powder is a bit more expensive. I found some at the health food store for $7.99 but it smells earthy and lovely, and prevents hair loss. It is also full of nutrients and contains three ingredients: amalaki (amla), haritaki and bibhitaki. Amla is a very nourishing Ayurvedic herb and can be purchased separately. It’s usually a pale green and has a similar aroma to that of Triphala. Amla is known as the “superfood for hair”. It is known to add thickness and shine to hair, and has a high concentration of amino acids and antioxidants including quercetin and gallic acid and contains about 17x more antioxidant power than pomegranate. It’s worth a try! (Side note: I notice amla loosens my curls. Great to try before a Wash ‘n’ Go!)

CINNAMON POWDER

Mixing cinnamon and honey is a well known hair remedy for hair growth as its meant to stimulate the scalp. To make the mask easier to apply, add olive oil.

ALL SPICE POWDER

This is the powder of the Pimento Officinalis tree berries. It is antiseptic and promotes hair growth. All spice will open up your blocked pores in the scalp to help oil get through. Using this before a hot oil treatment is beneficial. Using all spice will also remove bacteria from your scalp and hair. It also smells wonderful with the aroma of cinnamon, cloves and juniper.

BRAHMI POWDER

Another nourishing Ayurvedic hair powder that can be used with other great hair powders like Neem, Amla or Tulsi.

Sometimes, we have everything we need for our hair to thrive, and then some. We like to go all out and splurge on a new TGIN co-wash or some emu essential oil to add to our repertoire of hair products. Then, other times, and what this post is focusing on–times are HARD. Trust me, I know. I’ve put some questionable things in my hair, which has given me the insight to write this post. Sometimes you just don’t have a fancy nice butter with sumptuous ylang-ylang and a decadent acai berry scent to coat your thirsty strands! Well, damn, don’t worry cuz I got you! I’ve found some things that are next to nothing cheap you can keep in your hair pantry for those days.

1. Coconut Milk This can cost anywhere between $0.79 on sale to like $1.99 if you need to get bougie. Buy a couple cans and keep it in your pantry. I have thick hair to my shoulders (okay, if I boost and really stretch it) and a half can is one wash. The reason why this stuff is amazing is because it will lightly cleanse, moisturize and soften your hair and leave it shiny. Best used as a deep conditioner or in conjuction with a bit of condish you may have scraping at the bottom of your conditioner bottle. Put it together and voila…you’ve got a concoction that’s equal to the stuff in a $15 bottle! Thank me later!

2. Extra Virgin Olive Oil If you are running low on many other items, heat this stuff up and rub it in your scalp and through your ends before you do a co-wash or a regular shampoo. Leave it in for 15 minutes and rinse. This will keep you going until you replenish your regular oils that are more costly like Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, jojoba oil or Jamaican castor oil, or Shea butter. Or what have you. Different strokes for different folks. But EVOO works in a pinch. Add it to the last remainders of your hair butters for a bit of longevity! (Also works for body creams and moisturizes excellently).

3. Apple Cider Vinegar Buy a bottle for $3 and keep it for those days you need to clean a dirty scalp or rid yourself of all that edge gel you got going on. I don’t buy shampoo that often because I don’t wash my hair with it unless I have tons of non-natural products in it like hairspray and gels. But ACV comes through, it’s cheap and you don’t need a lot. Just watch out for the sting in the eye. Gets me every time. Use this when you run out of your regular curly girl shampoo and aren’t about to go buy another $15 bottle for a week or two.

4. Black Soap This Ghana staple will cleanse your scalp gently and a bar of it costs $2-$4 and a container of liquid black soap is about $2.99. It’s all-natural and you probably have some on deck to wash your face with. Black soap is made from Shea, honey, oils, ash and other nutrient-packed content and if you aren’t already using it to wash your hair, well now you know somethign that will keep your hair clean! Shoot, you just may never go back to regular shampoo again!

5. Eggs or Mayonaise If you have nothing else, it’s uninspiring but mix this with that desperate bit of EVOO you have left and you have a great deep conditioner. Bonus if you have a banana or avocado to add to this.

6. Cheap condish – I like to use natural, Black-owned hair products and the prices of these are sometimes double that of conventional hair products aimed at Europeans, if not triple. Most of the time I can afford them but sometimes, my hydro bill rockets or there’s a dope jacket on sale and for those times, I keep a cheap $5-$7 bottle of conditioner on hand like Live Free or JASON. When I have them, I add a few drops of essential oils to ramp up the effects and leave it there in the back of my vanity cupboard. When I get desperate and start rummaging for cheap condish, knowing I’ve run out of my regular stuff, I find Old Faithful.

7.Tea bags Most people have tea on hand. If you don’t, you’re probably not the greatest hostess. Use whatever you got on hand–every tea is beneficial to some degree or another and right now we are not being picky, now are we? You can use chamomile, green, black, nettle, ginger (even using the root and boiling it), Hibiscus, rosemary (just boil some of the herbs, and you can also do this with thyme) and peppermint is particularly good for oily scalp as it controls sebum.

I’m sure if you rummage through your kitchen, your pantry and your beauty cabinets you will find a few items to hold you over until the next time you can run into the hair shop and come out with every new hair cream. Just don’t forget to stock up on that coconut milk first!

My curls today were poppin’, the humidity is my best friend when I have flax seed and aloe vera gel on board.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to the news. I guess we all have since Trump was inaugurated. I’ve watched the world slowly deteriorate and turn into some violent dystopic nightmare. But no place in the world is it worse than Africa, our Motherland. Mother Africa always suffers the most, it seems, by default. I’m not even sure which issue in Africa is the most pertinent because all those starving, suffering Black faces look the same to me. From the desperate West African migrants getting raped and tortured in Libya, to the starving babies in South Sudan and Ethiopia. I thought those African starving babies on the TV days were done…but now it seems that people flicker their eyes in pity and move on with their lives. I don’t know if it’s the famine, or the shortage of food or the militia or the criminals running the cities across Mali and the Gambia. All I know is Mother Africa has suffered enough, my people have suffered enough.

If I had one wish, it would be for stability, prosperity, health and happiness in Mother Africa. I wish we could rescue all of those children and bring them here to where we throw out food and complain of food babies at buffets.

My grandmother is oldschool. She was born in the 1930s and has a mock heart attack every time I come over for some bakes and caloloo. She is quick to wag a finger at my free, flying spirally hair and give me a lecture that I must “contain my unruly hair” and “look presentable. You’re a professional now”.

I always smile politely and nod. There is no convincing Gran my natural hair makes me happy, especially when it’s free from any confines. Haven’t we been confined enough? Confined to hot irons and weaves stifling all this beautiful, luscious hair? I know Gran grew up in a different era and finds natural hair that isn’t shiny and sleekly held back in place by gel very sloppy and unkempt.

I wish she knew that when the wind blows through my curls, I feel so alive and free. When the sun warms on my head, I can smell the release of the rosemary and jojoba oils I had lovingly caressed into my scalp that morning. When I catch a glimpse of myself in a car window or a lobby mirror, I see my boundless, exuberant hair amplifying my boundless, exuberant smile. My hair is a reflection of me. It is natural, defiant, soft, strong, willful, fun and unapologetically, undeniably African. Yes, for work I do wear my hair up as creatively as I can (I work in a hospital and I wouldn’t want to drag home specks of flying blood and God knows what else in my hair anyway!) but when I’m done, I shake it free and go on my merry way. I am not defined by my hair. It’s my hair and my rules, and I choose to be empowered by it’s essence of freedom.

In December, Vibe predicted natural hair would be a big trend in 2017. Which doesn’t really make sense. It’s our hair. That would mean being ourselves may not be as cool or avant-garde in 2018 or 2019? It would be helpful if they delved a little deeper and reported some cool new cuts or styles for natural hair that will be on point in 2017. I’m sure when a magazine talking about white women’s hair discusses new trends they don’t just say “European hair a trend this year!” Our collective hair journeys are not about running from bell bottom jeans to skinny jeans to high waisted jeans. It is about jumping from repression, from the devaluation of Black femininity to shaping our identity as modern Black women and embracing our own roots.

So is natural hair still a trend in 2017? If it is, good, because maybe once more women with Afro hair get on the bandwagon they will realize that they had something beautiful and unique all along–and they can flaunt it 24/7 and 365! Except…maybe on wash day. 😉

So, I’m in love with bantu knot hairstyles. It epitomizes African creativity and aesthetics, and is a unique style all of our own. But damn–it’s not easy to slay. I am not a tactile person. I can barely put the couch pillows together the right way on the first (and second) try, much less attempt this elaborate hairstyle! But I’m not giving up until I have thick, sturdy Bantu knots that look proper, and not like melting candle wax.

I want to thank social media for all the beautiful Black women who are embracing natural hair! Without that network of sisthren, I don’t think I’d have reached a consciousness of how exclusive and exquisite African hairstyles are. I certainly wouldn’t have had the confidence to rock something as Afrocentric as Bantu knots if it weren’t for the trailblazers before me, and of course, our sisthren in the Motherland who we can always turn to for influence and insight into creating that African identity out here, and remembering who we are.

Eris the Planet on YouTube (photo above) makes Bantus look effortless. *side eye*. here is the link to check out her pretty style. And who doesn’t love Bantus? They are unapologetically African, a protective style and creates a second style when you’re done with the knots (the pretty Bantu knot-out).

I am challenging myself to, once and for all, shed my identity created and shaped by Western ideology; and to embrace African ideologies and principles. My mind and soul is in Africa, but my body is in Canada. Why should we be competing with the makers of Western culture instead of experiencing the authenticity of our own culture because the bottom line is we are Africans outside of Africa. We are Africa’s lost souls, and we need to reconnect with Mother Africa. If you put on a headscarf and an African dress, do you look any different than a sister in Ethiopia or Nigeria? No. Because we are all one.

It is not an easy thing to aspire to, but I challenge you too whether you are at school, working or a combination of the two… rediscover what looking more like an African, and less like a European/American/North American looks like. I cannot even shop at the mall anymore, I do not see anything there that is representative of my culture. Zara. H&M. Urban Outfitters. Do we all really want to look like a manufactured Western ideal or do we want to reach higher and awaken the divine power within us. Do we want to operate on a higher level, do we want to be peasants and followers; or empresses and leaders? Analyze your life, there is always a Western idea lurking…banish it. Operate higher. You are worth so much more.